Let’s be honest: Putin’s the most effective leader in the world today.

That doesn’t mean he’s good news for anybody – not even for the Russians, in the long run. His ruthless ambition and gambler’s audacity may end terribly.

But, for now, give the devil his due: After a long string of successes, from his personal mastery of Russia’s government and media to his coldblooded energy brinkmanship, Putin has capped his performance with a stunning success in Georgia.

Not a single free-world leader currently in office can measure up to Czar Vladimir the Great.

Following his turnaround of Russia from bankrupt kleptocracy to flush-with-cash autocracy, he’s now openly determined to restore Moscow’s old empire.

And he’s getting away with it.

As a former intelligence officer, I’m awestruck by the genius with which Putin assessed the strategic environment on the eve of his carefully scripted invasion of Georgia.

With his old KGB skills showing (he must’ve been a formidable operative), Putin not only sized up President Bush humiliatingly well, but precisely anticipated Europe’s nonreaction – while taking a perfect-fit measure of Georgia’s mercurial president.

Putin not only knew what he was doing – he knew exactly what others would do.

This is intelligence work at the hall-of-fame level. (For our part, we had all the intelligence pieces in our hands and failed to assemble the puzzle.)

On the military side, the months of meticulous planning and extensive preparations for this invasion were covered by military exercises, disingenuous explanations – and maskirovka, the art of deception the Red Army had mastered. The Russians convinced us to see what we wanted to see.

Equally as remarkable was the Kremlin’s ability to lead the global media by the nose. (Oblivious to the irony, a BBC broadcast yesterday portrayed tiny, poorhouse Georgia as a propaganda powerhouse and Russia as an information victim – an illustration of the Russian propaganda machine’s effectiveness.) From the start, every Russian ministry was reading from the same script (try to orchestrate that in Washington). Breaking off his phony play date with Bush in Beijing, Putin rushed back to the theater of war.

Upon arrival, he publicly consoled “refugees” who had been bused out of South Ossetia days in advance. Launching the war’s Big Lie, Putin deployed dupe-the-rubes code words, such as “genocide” and “response.”

Wearing his secret-policeman’s stone-face, Putin blamed Georgia for exactly what his storm troopers were doing to the Georgians. And lazy journalists around the world served as the Kremlin’s ad agency.

Strategy and conflict hinge on character. Putin’s character is ugly, but he’s certainly got one: On the world stage, he comes across as a man among munchkins. When French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew in to Moscow to demand a cease-fire, Putin – busy with his war – couldn’t be bothered.

He fobbed Sarko off on Russia’s play-pretend president.

Sarko thought he was grandstanding as a statesman, but Putin saw him as a “useful idiot” (in Leninist parlance).

Carla Bruni’s husband got the cease-fire the twittering European Union demanded, all right. He returned to Paris holding in his hands a piece of paper that “guarantees peace in our time.” Putin’s thugs kept on killing. And they’re still killing as I write.

Putin makes promises blithely to make flies go away. But the promises are worthless.

Russia’s troops will find excuses to stay right where they are – or they’ll fake a withdrawal, leaving behind “South Ossetian volunteers” from Russian airborne units.

Want a straightforward indication of what the Russians intend? Putin’s code-name for this operation is Chistoye Polye. Literally translated, that means “clean field.” In military parlance, it means “scorched earth.”

The empire of the czars hasn’t produced such a frightening genius since Stalin.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World.”